TCOEM is awarded a $117,000 grant

April 16, 2014

Tyler County Director of the Office of Emergency Management Tom Cooper informed the Tyler County Commission on April 8 that he had been approved the prior week for a grant in the amount of $117,000.

The grant is for two pieces of equipment. One is a 200 kw generator, an extremely large generator that can be used to back up the emergency operation center or Sistersville General Hospital.

"It's much bigger than the existing one at the hospital, so this will make us a second larger unit and it's mobile, so we can take it wherever we need it," said Cooper.

The second piece of equipment is an air monitoring system that is extremely high quality. It is a remote system where you can set up four monitors in remote locations. He said, "They have GPS, they all talk back to a central point, and you can watch air movements."

Cooper said there have been some problems the past couple weeks at one of the well sites, putting off gas and people have had to leave their homes. He said this way they can be monitoring and see where the air is moving and know instantly if there is a problem. He said all of this came about in the last week and he needs to get the commissioners' signatures on the grant. He noted they need to act swiftly on it because the grant expires at the end of June. "So I'd like to possibly get this signed today."

Cooper said they would have to put the generator out for bids but the air monitor has a sole provider, which means there is only one place that has it. It has to be bought direct from the company. He explained this is a reimbursable grant and the money has been there since 2011 and must be spent or it will be lost. He mentioned it would not take long to get the check because they want to wrap this up too.

"You don't usually get a $117,000 grant in three days, but we did and they needed to spend that money and this falls into the categories of what they need to spend it on," said Cooper.

The commissioners approved the grant, signed it, and gave Cooper permission to pursue it.

The commissioners also approved the annual memorandum of agreement with the West Virginia University Cooperative Extension Service and approved the drawdown of $2,000 from the Tyler County Fairgrounds improvements grant project.

The commissioners received a letter of approval for the State Auditor's Office approving the commission's 2014-2015 fiscal year budget. Approval was also given to change the April 13 meeting date to April 15, to set the levy.

Also approved were budget revisions, the clerks, fiduciary report, and the assessor's report on exonerations.

Eric Vincent moved to approve $1,000 for Melody Glasscock, coordinator for the Wetzel/Tyler Child Advocacy Center, to finish out her year, for insurance and to use towards the National Child Alliance Program.

President John Stender said he would be attending the 4-H meeting that evening and the senior meeting the week after. He said the work at the 4-H grounds was complete but they are still waiting on them to set the new transformer. They are also waiting on the bids for the prosecutor's office and the stone and roof work at the sheriff's office. The minutes of the March 11 and 25 meetings were approved, as was the pavement of bills. The next regular meeting will be held on May 22 at 9 a.m.